


Records

by Myxini



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Abuse, Diary/Journal, M/M, Memory Loss, POV First Person, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Sickfic, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-29
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-05-10 02:12:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5565100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Myxini/pseuds/Myxini
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two days after crawling out of the river, Bucky is safe at Steve’s place and remembers his old life. But there are new gaps in his memory—he has no idea where he’s been or what he’s been doing in the decades since 1945. To make matters worse, his body seems to remember something his mind doesn’t, and it’s not adjusting well.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, lab notes and recordings from the Winter Soldier project have been recovered. And Steve attempts to master the art of the email.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Records

**Author's Note:**

> Warning—this fic contains/will contain:  
> \- gross medical stuff including vomiting and surgery  
> \- the kind of mental/physical abuse you’d expect from a fic about HYDRA and the Winter Soldier  
> \- run-on sentences. Brace yourself.

03:42

Feels wrong to start a journal entry without a date, but I got no clue what day it is. Can’t even remember the year, to be honest. I know the time because it’s staring at me from the table by the bed, spelled out in big red glowing numbers on some box that Steve says is a clock. I’ll take his word for it, because I don’t know a thing anymore.

Well—that’s not entirely true. I know my name and my birthday and the street I grew up on, which was more than I knew yesterday. I know that seventeen hours ago, I was hunched over on Steve’s kitchen floor, puking my brains out and wondering if _this_ is how it’s finally gonna end. Not with a bullet to the guts, or chemical fire in my veins, or the cold hard ground rising up to meet me at terminal velocity—but with a goddamned cheese sandwich tearing its way out of my belly like a devil busting out of hell.

Steve was a good sport about it. (Of course he was, the bastard.) He made me sit down, seeing as I was shaking pretty hard, and he cleaned up the mess himself. A couple of hours later, when I tried eating some plain oatmeal, we had the trash can ready. I was spewing bile after ten minutes. Applesauce didn’t stay down any better. Steve thinks I should try diluted chicken broth, but that’ll have to wait, ‘cause after three rounds of puking, my stomach doesn’t stand a chance.

Steve’s asked me a hundred times if I can remember my last meal, or the last time I slept, or anything at all before about sixty hours ago. I keep telling him, I don’t remember a thing. I crawled out of that river with my brain blank as a fresh-washed chalkboard. All I had was Steve—the image of his bruised face, the memory of his weight in my arms. It was a picture of him on a sign outside the Smithsonian that drew me in there. And that’s where I found my own younger, happier-looking mug smiling down at me from a display, which I stared at and read and re-read until my head ached so bad I couldn’t see straight. And I stumbled out of the museum and out of the sun and into the DC Metro, where I spent seven hours curled up in a corner by the ticket machines, clutching my head and rocking back and forth and probably looking like I’d taken some real bad drugs.

There was a voice in my mind. It was the same voice that had screamed at me to me stop hurting Steve, that had convinced me to drag him up out of the water. It told me stories, wonderful stories—about the way Brooklyn looks on a summer morning, about the joys and miseries of mud and blood and gunfire, about Captain America and some goon called Bucky Barnes who thought he was big enough to fight beside a superhero. The words poured into the void of me until they filled me back up. Memories bubbled out of long-forgotten cracks.

Not everything came back. By the time my headache cleared, I knew who I was, but not when I was, or how I wound up there, or why I was even alive. The last thing I could remember was falling off a train somewhere in Europe—and then suddenly I was lost in a world that was full of lights that were too bright and metal that was too shiny and people who wore weird clothes. Honestly, I never felt more terrified in my whole life than when I realized how much I didn't understand.

The look Steve gave me when I explained all this was so stunned that it would’ve been hilarious if it hadn’t scared me so much. “You don’t remember anything after that train ride in 1945?”

“Not a single second,” I said, and I saw by his expression that he knew a lot more than I did. Questions poured out of my mouth. “What happened to me, Steve? How am I still alive? What the hell was I doing, fighting you like that?”

He wouldn’t tell me. He changed the subject, brought me back to the part of my story where a guy, probably assuming I was homeless, had offered me a paper-wrapped sandwich as I’d crouched in the subway. Minutes later, I was throwing up so hard that someone called for help. Steve got there before the ambulance did. I guess he’d been monitoring the emergency line somehow.

“That means you haven’t kept food down in forty-eight hours, at the very least,” he said. “That’s bad, Buck."

He doesn’t have to tell me. I feel like cow shit that’s been run over by a tank. My head is pounding, my stomach is miserable twisted knot, and my muscles don't seem to be on speaking terms with my bones. But I feel all the worse for not having answers. Seventy years is lot of time to be missing. I want to know what happened to me. I think I have the right to an explanation.

Steve looked like he wanted to cry when I revisited the topic as he was setting me up in his guest room. He urged me not to think about it, to just try and get some sleep, but I kept pressing him. “I’ll tell you as soon as you’re healthier,” he promised eventually. “It’ll be too much of a shock right now. Trust me on this one, Buck. Please.”

I wish he’d cut it out. I’m not stupid—I know whatever happened can’t be good. I was _fighting him,_ for chrissakes. Stuff got destroyed. There was wreckage and fire. And even if my mind can’t remember, my body does. It makes me sweat when I think about what kind of person would have a body like the one I’m living in right now.

I took a shower this morning. It felt like heaven to get all the dirt and grime and blood off my skin. Not so nice to realize that my own shape is unfamiliar to me. I wasn’t ever scrawny, but now I got muscles almost as impressive as Steve’s, which would be swell except I can’t remember how they got there. Don’t think my hair used to be this long either. Washing it felt awkward, like my hands didn’t know what to do. And of course, there’s the fucking metal arm. I can’t imagine anyone welds a thing like that to a guy’s shoulder with innocent intentions. My right arm is worse. Don’t know why, but looking at those collapsed veins and little round scars made me feel like I was gonna black out. I had to get out of the shower and sit on the floor of Steve’s bathroom, dripping and shaking like I’d just come back from a battlefield.

It’s not a good sign that I can’t eat. Being unable to stomach oatmeal is not a quality of someone who’s been leading a quiet life in the countryside. And I can’t sleep either. My head is swimming from how bad I need to, but when I lie down and close my eyes, the sleep just doesn’t come. I had the strangest feeling that I wasn’t cold enough. So I took off all my blankets and lay there, shivering. I went to Steve’s freezer and opened it and stood in the chill until my teeth were chattering. I’ve got a window open now. It’s so cold in this room that I can see my breath. Still, I can’t sleep.

So, instead, I write.

Steve gave me this notebook earlier and said he thought I might want to keep a journal. He remembers how back in our war days, whenever things got tough on me, I used to sit down and write letters home. Or letters, anyway—I didn’t always send them. Usually they ended up too personal for other people to read. But I wrote them all the same, because putting my thoughts down in ink used to help me get my head on straight.

All these years later and he remembers that. Good old Steve. I’m so glad to be with him again. I’m so glad I could cry. I don’t know how or why, but something in the back of my head understands that we were apart a long time, that we almost lost each other forever. But now I’m here and he’s here. That’s all I need. Makes how terrible I feel just bearable.

He’s the first and last thing I remember. His outstretched hand, rushing away above me—and then his face, battered and blinking on the far side of my fist. Maybe it’s best that I’ve lost all the memories from in between. I’m not sure that any part of my life without Steve in it would be worth recalling.

* * *

**To: scaryredhead@avengers.net**  
**From: geriatricpatriot@avengers.net**  
**Subject: Hi Nat do you know what and how they were feeding the WS? Thanks Steve**

* * *

**To: geriatricpatriot@avengers.net**  
**From: vbr34MN08@xz.com**  
**Subject: WS inquiry**

Steve,

First of all, what have I told you about putting your entire question in the subject line?

Second of all, please contact me at this email and not my Avengers one. Frankly I don’t trust Stark’s security, and I find the address he chose for me… grating.

To answer your question—we have recovered many, many documents from HYDRA detailing the Winter Soldier project, mostly in the form of tape recordings and disintegrating notebooks written by men with startlingly poor penmanship. They’re being processed now, but it’s a massive job, and unfortunately it’s impossible for me to get you information as specific as what you’re requesting.

I can only think of one reason why you would want to know something like that. Are you safe, Steve? Are you sure you’re safe?

—N

* * *

**To: vbr34MN08@xz.com**  
**From: geriatricpatriot@avengers.net**  
**Subject: WS inquiry**

Dear Natasha,

Thank you for your reply and your concern. Yes, I’m safe.

He doesn’t remember any of it. It’s like someone flipped a switch in his head. The man I know and love is back, but he has no idea where he’s been for the past seventy years. I suppose I'll have to tell him eventually, but now doesn't seem like the right time. He's sick as a dog.

That's why I contacted you. He can’t eat or sleep properly and I suspect we have HYDRA to thank for that. I’m just trying to get some nutrients in him. Please let me know if you come across anything that might help.

Fondly,  
Steve

* * *

**To: geriatricpatriot@avengers.net**  
**From: vbr34MN08@xz.com**  
**Subject: WS inquiry**

I think I can get you copies of the notebooks and tapes. You certainly have enough of a claim to merit that. Maybe you’ll find something we haven’t gotten to yet.

If you’re interested, I’ll have copies made and delivered to you immediately. Let me know if you need anything else—information or otherwise—and I’ll see what I can do.

Take care of yourself, Steve. I mean it.

—N


End file.
